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Home / Life&Culture / DGCA has no plans to ground all A230neos, but IndiGo grounds 3

DGCA has no plans to ground all A230neos, but IndiGo grounds 3

Posted on Thursday, February 15, 2018 by Delia Stanley

Airbus has briefed airlines and leasing companies on the problem and cannot yet say how long it will take to resolve

"We are working with the engine manufacturer to replace the affected engines and to understand the longer-term implications of this situation". Currently, in India, 45 Airbus A320neo powered by the PW1100G-JM geared-turbofan (GTF) engines are being operated by IndiGo and GoAir.

The move will force airlines operating the A320neo with affected engines to ground some of their planes, it added. The rest of the fleet is safe to fly as per guidelines issued by DGCA and EASA, " it said.

About 30 percent of the 113 Pratt-powered A320neos in operation worldwide are equipped with either one or two of the flawed engines, Airbus said Monday in an emailed response to questions from Bloomberg News. While the GTF powered Airbus A320neo and the Bombardier CSeries have entered service, the Embraer Ejet E2 family, Mitsubishi MRJ family, the Russian Irkut MC-21 and the Chinese COMAC C919 are under flight testing.

"Pratt & Whitney is working with Airbus to implement the remediation plans set forth in its all operator transmission".

In total, about thirty engines, one or two engines per plane, are affected, according to a source close to the problem.

Pratt implemented an engineering change in mid-2017 that was meant to improve the durability of the seal, with the new engines fitted to aircraft from December 2017, but the modified engines "did not perform as anticipated", the company said. Customers can choose between the Pratt & Whitney model and a type built by the CFM joint venture between General Electric Co and France's Safran SA.

It's hard to assess how this latest setback will affect United Technologies' short-term profitability or its goal this year of nearly doubling the 374 engine deliveries it made in 2017, but it doesn't seem good.

A statement from IndiGo on Saturday said the precautionary measure of grounding the three aircraft "resulted in cancellations of some of our flights".

"Pratt & Whitney, in coordination with Airbus, will present to regulatory authorities this week a proposed mitigation plan for the modified configuration", P&W said in a statement. IndiGo had said earlier that, on certain days, the airline had seen as many as nine of its aircraft grounded due to unavailability of spare engines leading to flight disruptions.

The problem involves the knife-edge seal in the high-pressure compressor aft hub and can potentially appear on engines starting with serial number P770450.

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